


To Be Continued

by RisuAlto



Series: Tai Lon's Story [1]
Category: Pillars of Eternity
Genre: Also Tai Lon definitely has a crush on Edér here, Canon-Typical Reincarnation, Friendship, Gen, Not sure if I need to tag that but there you go, Spoilers for Aloth's personal quest in PoE1, but she doesn't end up with him so I didn't tag it, just in case
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-18
Updated: 2019-11-18
Packaged: 2021-02-08 12:55:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,230
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21476350
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RisuAlto/pseuds/RisuAlto
Summary: Tai Lon started to wonder if maybe she should be trying to read the souls of the people closest to her.  She might have expected not all of them would give her simple answers.
Relationships: Edér Teylecg & The Watcher
Series: Tai Lon's Story [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1548022
Comments: 2
Kudos: 6
Collections: Pillars of Eternity Prompts Weekly





	To Be Continued

**Author's Note:**

> For prompt #0002, "Reunion."
> 
> Tai Lon is a pale elf rogue from the White that Wends with high Honest and Benevolent reputations.

Tai Lon didn’t approach this whole Watcher thing with the idea that she was going to get inside the head of everyone she met. After all, as her mother used to say, she was cursed with the inability to leave a problem alone when she could do something to fix it, and Tai Lon just _knew_ that ninety-nine out of every hundred souls would be desperately calling out for some kind of help; frankly, there was no time for that amidst the utter chaos that her life had become since coming to the Dyrwood.

It wasn’t until Iselmyr that Tai Lon wondered if maybe she was being too conservative. If she had tried to read Aloth before, would she have noticed the second soul within him? Would she have been able to do something sooner, cut off the angst of the whole situation at its head?

And so, with great hesitation and equal curiosity, Tai Lon took advantage (mostly) of quiet moments around the campfire to start reaching out.

* * *

She started with Kana when he approached her one night en route to Caed Nua with a question about the White that Wends. His soul was bursting with energy and curiosity to match her own, and so it was easy to be drawn into the essence. What greeted her was a memory of a soul even more restless than her own, a ship’s captain who was running _towards_ each adventure as much as _away_ from the past, away from commitment, away from responsibility. This was a soul who was immersed in life for the joy of each moment, not for the sake of creating a path.

Suddenly, the pieces of Kana’s soul that seemed to dance away from his core and his excitement at seeing the world made sense—an echo of a life so loud that it persisted through the Wheel for centuries.

“Are you alright?” The warmth of Kana’s voice was matched only by the warmth of his hand on Tai Lon’s shoulder.

“Yeah, I’m good,” she said with a smile. “Sorry. To be honest, I don’t really understand the obsession with Rymrgand because, really, ‘enigmatic god of cold and death?’ I’d bet a week’s earnings in copper that he’s a dick. But worshiping him, I guess, is kind of like fatalistic humor? Their—_our_ way of coping with the whole situation, maybe, even if it’s not the best.”

Kana’s eyes lit up with understanding rather than dimming in disappointment at her vague answer, and Tai Lon couldn’t help but grin.

* * *

Sagani’s soul was a little harder to reach. She was tucked neatly into her life, the flow of her essence calm and predictable and yet also nurturing. Tai Lon found that when Sagani spoke of her family, she opened up a little, unable to hold back the warmth and love woven into her very being. The Watcher reached out to it with a smile on her face.

The lives she found there were simple—several of them were eerily reminiscent of Sagani’s current existence, blanketed by snow and a community bound as much by duty as necessity that had grown into affection and protectiveness. She wasn’t always a hunter. In one memory, Tai Lon witnessed a Nasitaaq woman so skilled with leather and cloth that her techniques outlived her name (_Yaarin,_ she would tell Sagani someday). But it seemed that Sagani’s soul was as much a part of the Land as their unforgiving ice storms. She might take a break now and then to live as a farmer in Readceras (once, she was a merchant prince of the Vailian Republics), but she was drawn back to The Land like a compass to a lodestone, time and time again.

Tai Lon pulled away from those memories suffused with contentment. Though the feeling that her breath should be visible as it left her lungs remained, an easy peace took hold as Sagani explained the shenanigans one of her sons had put the family through on his third birthday.

* * *

Tai Lon was not looking forward to Durance. She ended up biting that bullet immediately after a fight, using the adrenaline to fuel her resolve, and leapt headfirst into the essence of the priest. It felt a whole lot like narrowly dodging a Fireball spell, anger and resentment licking and searing her essence at every given chance. But she set her jaw and bore it, tumbling through fire and void until she was seeing the life of a village healer with hands so delicate that no one who felt their touch could believe it anything except magical.

The lie was gorgeous, even exquisite. Tai Lon felt as those fingers slipped through stitches, snatched a plant from just the wrong shelf, prescribed medicine for a sliver of time too short, and waited with eyes like ice for the patients to return. Complications, after all, were lucrative.

A wave of disgust ejected her violently from the soul just as Tai Lon felt a heartbeat fade under the healer’s fingertips and a grim smile cross those lips. She walked away from Durance—from the battle—with a frown that confused her companions as much as it concerned them. She felt like she understood the priest even less than before and somehow resented him all the more for what she had seen.

It was several weeks before she was able to make herself believe that Durance was a wholly different person in this lifetime, and that the tingling of her skin within his Consecrated Ground was completely normal.

* * *

She considered, briefly, looking into Aloth’s soul for real when they ended up chatting about the differences in their Awakenings around a fire one night, but the likelihood that he was keeping other soul troubles from her at this point seemed… small. Tai Lon couldn’t shake the feeling that there was still something keeping her from fully _knowing_ Aloth, but that was a problem for when she wasn’t grappling with having to choose the lesser of four evil factions in Defiance Bay.

* * *

Edér’s soul was as open as his smile. His real smile, anyway—the one that was most often drawn out by small, fluffy creatures. The sensation of losing herself in his soul was still disorienting, but rather than a dizzying tug as she disconnects from reality, Tai Lon felt as though she was being led by the hand. Something in her chest flickered like campfire embers.

Her eyes stung as she opened them, submerged somewhere in water that was almost perfectly clear. Frustration bubbled up, and small legs push off the bottom of the white marble basin, kicking until the body broke the surface with a gasp. _“What was _that_ for?!” _exclaimed a child’s voice as he pulled himself to the edge of an exquisitely carved fountain, leaning a chubby chin on his arms and pouting.

_“You looked so serious!”_ laughed a perfectly dry little girl, sitting on her butt and reclining in the manicured grass. The girl’s hair was golden blonde and loose, and her cheeks were smudged with dirt. Compared to the fine clothes now clinging, soaking wet, to her playmate, she might as well have been wearing rags. Her smile, though, was as bright as the sunlight glinting off the palace spires that rose just beyond the garden walls.

As the boy made eye contact with the girl and failed spectacularly to maintain his affronted pout, a spark of familiarity struck Tai Lon. The embers in her chest kindled themselves into a soft flame. 

The girl reached out a hand to help her friend out of the basin. But solid ground didn’t remain under their feet for long as they both collapsed, giggling breathlessly, into the grass. After a minute, the girl turned her head and asked, _“Better?”_

_“As always,”_ the boy said. It was supposed to come out sarcastically, like a grumble, but instead sounded unbearably fond. A simple phrase rippled through the Watcher’s chest, unvoiced, but all-consuming. _Thanks._

Flashes of the children growing up passed in front of Tai Lon’s eyes, and each time she saw the little girl (young woman, eventually), the warm feelings of recognition seemed to grow. She couldn’t be sure if it was really _her_ or if it was the life through whose eyes she was watching, but she found it comforting.

Years later in life, the boy has become a man, truly, but Tai Lon recognized no connection, no spark of warmth. The girl had been gone for years and sometimes it hurt, but sometimes he was just bitter about the whole thing. In the moment, he was speaking about economic policy to a council, and felt the emptiness grow with each push he made for a policy to reduce stratification. But of course, none of these others would have ever agreed with such a plan because it would reduce their own income.

_“Why do you bother?”_ someone would ask someday, and he would bite his tongue and say it was simply the right thing to do. Not a lie at all, but nowhere close to the truth.

A glance out towards the horizon from some dignitary’s balcony provided nothing but a strengthening sense of longing. It was so utterly, simply sad that he was unable to muster anything except a sigh when he was suddenly seized from behind and a knife was held to his throat.

Tai Lon felt the connection before the assassin opened her mouth, and time suddenly sped up until the boy and the girl were sitting on a bed, facing each other and smiling like they hadn’t in so many years. But still, separation was coming. Tai Lon could feel it, and so could they, and it was with a sad, _“Don’t go,” _and, _“Thank you for everything,”_ and, _“I’ll see you again—”_

_“—in another life, maybe—”_

—that Tai Lon was thrust through a dozen more lifetimes, each time feeling a small spark of recognition when Edér’s soul drew too close to particular strangers. But the connection never stuck.

Abruptly, Gilded Vale came into focus around her, slightly obscured by a puff of smoke in front of her face. A foreign, concerned voice floated through these ears, and the person turned to look. It was a wood elf, dark-haired and lithe, not visibly armed but carrying a book that told Edér clearly enough that he favored magic. The wood elf had a hand on the shoulder of another kith. The second figure was as deathly still as she was pale, head dropped back slightly to observe the bodies hanging from the trees, matching daggers tucked into her belt. Her jaw was slack, lips parted as though in horror at the situation (Edér agreed), but the expression persisted for far longer than seemed alright. The wood elf’s disturbed yet coaxing tone suddenly made sense.

At last, the pale elf moved, shaking herself subtly as her senses seemed to come back. She conversed briefly with her companion before making to walk away. Edér watched as she turned frighteningly sharp blue eyes in his direction—

If Tai Lon had her own body right then, she would have been torn between nausea and shock, because she felt something burst within her, tepid curiosity alighting with desperate warmth, _recognition_. It was different from the other memories, but Edér’s soul couldn’t know that. He simply felt a pull, one that hummed desperately as Tai Lon watched herself draw away from the tree of corpses.

Edér was frozen, overcome by the feeling that the pale elf would leave without a second glance if he didn’t say something. He _had_ to say something. _Hello, again._

But then her back was to him and the feeling passed; the fire choked and returned to embers, smoldering and clinging desperately to a fire that no longer had fuel. Edér was left stunned and grasping for words, and what came out was just, “Nineteen.” He held back a wince as both elves stopped and glanced back, as confused as Edér was.

The haze at the edges of Tai Lon’s vision began to clear, and she returned from the memory to the present with a lump stuck in her throat. Edér didn’t seem to have noticed anything yet, though Aloth’s eyes were on her, and his eyebrows were furrowed meaningfully (_Ha,_ she thought, _déjà vu_). She shook her head once and smiled a little. Aloth nodded, quietly understanding, and sat back, but Tai Lon could still feel his curiosity as she stared at the back of Edér’s head.

Edér continued to try and coax Itumaak into a display of affection by sharing his dinner with the fox. The words _coincidence_ and _destiny_ surfaced quietly in Tai Lon’s mind, and she pursed her lips. If the unfinished business of a past life had played some part in constructing meetings in _this_ one… Tai Lon felt she ought to have some more feelings about it. Probably indignation. Her feelings shouldn’t have to be anyone’s business but her own. (Suddenly, she understood how Aloth felt about Iselmyr, a deep empathy replacing the shallow understanding she had offered before, and it took every ounce of resolve in Tai Lon not to get up immediately and tell him everything.)

But the anger and confusion could wait a while, she figured, scooting next to Edér with a teasing smile. Sometimes, she just wanted accept a happy ending while it lasted.


End file.
